An engineering joint venture based in Yorkshire has delivered its largest ever rapid tooling project as demand for shorter lead times increases.

MetLase, which is a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and Unipart, has designed and manufactured a stainless steel tool measuring 4m in diameter and capable of holding a component 2m tall.

The company met the challenge of the major aerospace customer head-on, with manufacturing sign-off and delivery completed in just one month – 150 days quicker than the client would have previously expected.

It’s just one in a long list of notable successes from the firm, which is rewriting the rule book when it comes to rapid tooling development by harnessing the design skills of a 25-strong engineering team and joining solutions that replace the traditional welding process.

“Typical conventional tooling approaches often take a massive block of material and then you machine away the bits you don’t want to form the tool,” explained Richard Gould, business development manager at MetLase.

Richard Gould

He explained the technique: “Basically laser cutting sheetmetal, usually stainless steel or titanium, into lots of different elements. These are then joined together to form the tool using our very own manufacturing technique, removing the need to weld them together and the distortion that usually comes with this approach.”

“Everything is controlled in-house at MetLase and that’s another big benefit as we control the entire process. We have all the technology we require, we have the engineering talent and we are always adding to our standardised feature library and parametric modelling system that will allow us to instantly access formula for creating tools for specific applications.

“All of this means we are able to work with customers to reduce lead times to weeks if not days, meaning the client has more time to iterate their component design before signing off the tooling.

“As well as the time saving, our service can also help mitigate massive financial costs associated with last minute changes.”

MetLase, which employs 30 people at its AMP Technology Centre base in Rotherham, has already completed a number of high-profile projects using its rapid tooling development.

This includes creating a pipe fixture in less than 24 hours, using parametric modelling to modify a composite wing fixture for F1 in just 12 hours and responding quickly to a premium British automotive manufacturer’s styling department change that saw it accommodate quad pipes instead of twin.

Interest has come from automotive and aerospace initially, but the firm is now seeing other sectors, such as construction and medical, exploring rapid tooling and the benefits that can give them.

MetLase will be hosting the latest in a series of best practice webinars on Thursday at 3pm, this time covering in-line testing and validation for technical manufacturing.

Experts will explore how advances in digital quality checking will improve and shorten the quality checks using systematic, standardised techniques.

MetLase
www.metlase.com

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